Death The Leveller - a poem by James Shirley, ( England, 1596-1666 )

James Shirley was an English poet and teacher who became famous for his plays. He died during the Great London Fire. Death The Leveller is part of one of his plays. He concieves death as a great leveller who has no distinctions between the rich and poor, high and low, hard and soft. The glories of our blood and state are only shadows. Family tradition or social status do not come to our aid when we die. Man has no armour to hold against fate. Death lays his icy hand on Kings and subjects. Kings wearing the sceptre and crown and peasants bearing the scythe and spade are all brought to dust and made equal by death.

Great emperors like Ashoka and Alexander have won battlefields and raised victory memorials, but they too have gone to the other world. Great swordsmen reap heads of their opponents in the battlefield, but even their strong nerves yield at last and they too stoop to fate, early or late. Actually they are not winning over the other, but taming one another. Great war heros become wounded captives creeping to their death. They are now pale with shame in the hands of death because, unlike in the warfield, they now cannot protest and fight against their captivity. Victory memorials may wither away and great battles fade from memory. The once-victor will one day become the bleeding victim on the purple altar of death- purple because of blood and gore. However high our heads are held, they will have to come down to the cold tomb.Great heroic actions do not survive us. Only the just and right actions of a man blossom and emit sweet smell even after he has withered in dust.